Make The Decisions That Will Define You

Pretend you need to make a choice between doing this or
doing that. Both options have their merits. Both have
upsides and downsides. Absent a clear winner (which is often the
case) what should you do?

Always go with the hard choice.

Here’s why:

Effort creates its own reward.

Hard work – especially incredibly hard work – rarely pays off in
the short term. But without incredible effort there is almost
never an incredible payoff.

The hard choice usually requires the most effort and the greatest
personal investment on your part: And when you put in the time,
you learn more, grow more, and achieve more.

Even if you don't hit the target you aimed for you will have hit
a lot of other targets along the way... possibly some you didn't
even know existed.

Always choose to work harder. It always pays off.

Hard choices build outstanding reputations.

Staying late to complete a project, making a tough call to a
customer, tackling an employee issue head-on, biting the bullet
and taking responsibility when you make a mistake... you don’t
have to do any of them. In a crisis there are always easier
options.

But there is usually only one right option — even if it's the
least attractive option.

We all admire people who sacrifice, who compromise, who stand
tall in the face of adversity – so do the right thing, even if
the right thing is the hardest thing, and in time you may become
someone other people admire.

Luck is occasional, but intent lasts forever.

Deciding to take the easy way out usually means you hope luck
will play a part.

"We'll go ahead and ship this... if we're lucky the customer will
never notice the problem." (Almost everyone who has worked in
software or manufacturing has decided to let a quality problem go
so they can meet a ship/release date and hopefully avoid the cost
of rework. Sometimes you get lucky… and sometimes you don't.)

While it's painful to make the, "I'm sorry, but we're going to be
a day late but we found a quality problem we need to take care
of,” call, it's a lot worse to answer the, "How could you ship us
this garbage?" call.

The angel lies in the details.

Shortcuts, high level decisions, quick fixes ... sometimes they
work out, but they also mean you lose the chance to spot other
problems, identify other solutions, or find different ways to
improve.

"Quick and easy" creates an illusion of success. Effort and
application – and a willingness to do what others are not willing
to do – builds the foundation for lasting success.

The hard choice is always binary.

It's easy to convince yourself that a black-and-white situation
is actually gray. Usually it's not: Needing to fire the employee
who doesn’t fit; needing to bypass a senior employee for
promotion for a person less tenured but more deserving; needing
to call investors to let them know results are falling short of
forecast … you can talk yourself into thinking there are reasons
not to make the hard decision, but in the end you're just
rationalizing.

Usually there are a host of wrong answers, and one right answer.

Think about a tough decision you face. You can probably list a
number of easy answers – and one very difficult choice. Bite the
bullet and pick the hard choice.